One of the problems for users of English version OS in Taiwan is it is often difficult to get English versions of software as most items on the shelf are the Chinese version. A critical requirement on any computer is antivirus software.

I had previously used AVG (Commercial Version) on my main Desktop and Laptop systems, but it has been getting a bit bloaty and intrusive lately. (I still use and recommend the free version on less critical PCs.) Several months back I started looking at other AV solutions and two that came highly recommend were Kaspersky and Eset NOD32.

I had received a 90 day trial of Kaspersky with a hard drive I bought, so I gave that the first chance. Unfortunately while Kaspersky was fairly efficient, it was much more intrusive than AVG. When installing software it would almost always warn of the impending doom that could be caused by SETUP.EXE and verified that I was willing to risk death and destruction by running it.

It also frequently popped up confirmation dialogs when running programs for the first time, and generally was fairly generous about notifying me about all kinds of non-serious things. I don’t want my AV software to do that. I just want it to sit there quietly and quickly checking things and only telling me when it finds a real problem. So, Kaspersky was ruled out.

Then I downloaded a free 30 day trial of Eset NOD32 and for the whole trial period it did exactly what I wanted, quietly sitting in the background and only popping up when a real problem was found. (The first time this happened was late in the trial period when I started backing up my Gmail.) I managed to make it through the trial period without it annoying me with stupid stuff.

So now the problem… Only the Chinese version is sold in Taiwan. I did some searching and it seemed that it would be possible to switch to the English version, but nothing conclusive. Eventually I had to decide, so I rolled the dice and bought a copy. If you need to do the same thing, here is what you need to do:

1. Buy a copy of the software. I bought it from PC-Home’s 24h Shopping. I bought the 3 Year License Home Version. (Click on NOD32 on the left if you want a different license.)
2. When you get it, look at the back of the manual to find your license code. You will need to activate on the Eset’s Asia servers, not their US servers. If you can manage basic Chinese then you can register on Eset Taiwan or if you need English, go to Eset Singapore.
3. After you register, click on the Download link and then select “Download Purchased Software / Home Users” and scroll to the bottom for the English 4.0 version. The “Download” link will download the software and the “Manual” link will download the manual. (That’s for the Singapore site. The Taiwan site is organized a bit different. Click on download then select the English download link.) You will need your username and password to download, which is emailed to you about 15 minutes after registering.
4. Install the software.

Only one extra caveat. When I used the “Verify License Validity” option just after installing, it didn’t work. However, it was working fine by the next day. I’m not sure if it was something broken yesterday or if there is a delay during registration.